A Serbian prosecutor has charged eight police and state security officers with war crimes in connection with the 1999 killing of 48 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Serbia's special war crimes prosecutor says the suspects killed the 48, all but one of whom were members of the same Berisha family, in the town of Suva Reka, southwest of Pristina. The victims included at least 13 children and a pregnant woman.

The charges are the first arising from the discovery of 800 bodies at a police training facility at Batajnica, near Belgrade, after reformists came to power in Serbia in 2000. The bodies had been moved from Kosovo to hide evidence of atrocities.

Those charged include Radoslav Mitrovic, the former deputy commander of a Serb security police unit and Radoje Repanovic, the chief of police in Suva Reka.